As Dusk Falls – Test, Adventure

Bad Times at the Desert Dream Motel

Three mismatched brothers, a failed sheriff’s burglary, a lonely motel on Route 66 – and nothing to lose. The setting of As Dusk Falls, with its reluctant hillbilly gangsters, corrupt cops and a family who accidentally finds itself in the line of fire, has all the ingredients of a modern western at first. Similar to movies like Bad Times at the El Royale or gangster road movies like California, a crime turns people’s everyday lives into a nightmare – and an easy move into a struggle for survival. In its best moments, the six-hour gangster thriller is also reminiscent of high-class crime series like Fargo or Breaking Bad. But more on that later.

As Dusk Falls is an interactive visual novel storytelling close to Quantic Dream classics like Heavy Rain. No wonder, since the responsible studio INTERIOR/NIGHT is led by Caroline Marchal, lead game designer on Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls. Unlike Quantic Dream, however, the developers consistently focus on the narrative and reduce the game mechanics to the essentials. So instead of slowly traipsing through game environments, clicking on things and people, and being confronted with finger-squeezing quicktime events for the simplest of moves, there’s just dialogue, decisions, and short, simple skill tests here.

Little mechanics, more story

And I have to admit: this orientation is extremely conducive to the speed of the action. Instead of sneaking from conversation to conversation at a snail’s pace, a dialogue decision made under time pressure triggers the next scene directly. I don’t have time here for great reflection after a conversation or to look at the big bookshelf again pixel by pixel. Instead, I experience the next situation directly. There’s more action and decision making, and that’s great, because let’s be honest, no one plays Heavy Rain, Until Dawn, or Telltale’s The Walking Dead because of the great walking animations. At least I hope so.

Of course, this playful minimalism does not only have advantages – there is only one button in Quicktime events and most tests are far too easy for experienced players. There is also a lack of interaction with the environment at one point or another. There is no secondary information on notes or personal items that could give individual scenes more depth. In the search images, too, there are almost always only actions that also pursue a goal. While this helps the story, it severely limits the game mechanically.